Steem promotion as a decentralized competitor to Google AdSense - revisiting Visibility as a Service (VAAS)
TL;DR
Steem's value is governed by supply, demand, and Metcalfe's Law. To bring value to the blockchain, developers can influence all three by creating methods to put /promoted posts in front of more eyeballs.
Arguably, by impacting all three value levers, this sort of decentralized equivalent to Google AdSense is the lowest-effort/highest-impact option that's available.
Disclaimer
What follows includes many statements of opinion based on my own observations. Be suitably skeptical, and don't rely on it as investment advice.
Background
Some years ago, in the days when LLM coding capability was far more limited than it is today, I was thinking through the possibilities of Steem as a tool for Visibility as a Service. It occurred to me that the display of /promoted and #burnsteem25 posts doesn't even have to happen on a Steem front-end. People could display these posts on, for example, WordPress, SubStack, or BlogSpot blogs; github pages; news/information websites; anywhere, really.
The information provided by the app doesn't even have to be about Steem. It could be something as simple as stock prices or weather reports. As long as it also provides visibility for token-burning, it would still benefit the blockchain's users. For example, imagine a widget on CoinMarketCap, Yahoo Finance, or TronScan with a scrolling list of Steem's #burnsteem25 posts.
To this end, I created the Steemometer project. This created a desktop program that displayed Steem blockchain performance information alongside of #burnsteem25 and /promoted posts that were shuffled in and out according to the total beneficiary/promotion amount. It even added in the concept of "broadcast messages" or "vanity messages", so that someone could reach multiple users by sending a single message to @null, instead of sending 0.001 STEEM/SBD to each individual wallet.
Eventually, I stopped work on that, though I'm not sure why... With my limited availability of spare time, I guess it just got preempted by Thoth or the Steem Curation Extension.
Fast forward to this week. Yesterday, I decided to see just how hard it would be to display /promoted posts on BlogSpot with a modern LLM assistant (Claude). It took me, maybe, 10 minutes to create and install it - and I didn't even look at the code. This proof of concept image comes from my long dormant blogspot blog.
The important point here is that promotion visibility should no longer be limited to Steem front ends. Every external site running a widget like this has the capability to increase Steem's network-effect value by creating views, clicks, backlinks, and search-engine discovery.
Recognizing the SBD as the financial anchor to the ecosystem
(This section is dense. Feel free to skip it. The main point is just that everyone in the ecosystem benefits if we can get the haircut price below the STEEM price, and keep it there.)
As a debt mechanism, perhaps following a sliding peg, the SBD has basically three utility functions.
- When the price of STEEM is above the haircut price (the price threshold where SBD creation is capped to protect the blockchain's debt ratio), the SBD is a short position against the price of STEEM where someone holding SBDs can benefit from a falling price of STEEM. Lowering STEEM prices raises SBD value, in terms of STEEM.
- When the price of STEEM is below the haircut price, it's a long position where someone can benefit from a rising price of STEEM (or a reduction in the haircut price).
- It can be used for post promotion.
We accidentally harnessed the "long position" effect with proposals #116 and #117. Without those two proposals, I estimate that today's SBD price would be around $0.30, instead of the $0.41 that we see. Proposal 117 is coming to an end in a couple weeks, though, so (if nothing else changes), we can probably expect to see the SBD price tracking even more directly with the STEEM price in coming weeks.
In order to get the SBD price closer to $1.00, we need a more sustainable method of lowering the haircut price than by continuing to cannibalize the SPS. And, of course, the obvious choice is #3 - post promotion. Over the course of proposals 116 and 117, we have seen the haircut price fall from $0.14 to $0.107 as a result of burning SBDs. This sort of reduction could also be accomplished by utilizing the blockchain's built-in promotion mechanism.
Why do we care about whether the STEEM price is above or below the haircut price?
- When the price of STEEM rises above the haircut price, it triggers reductions in the blockchain's daily inflation rate. Overall, it is possible to reduce the inflation rate by about 10% (i.e. 90K per day to 81K per day) if the price of STEEM is sufficiently far above the haircut price.
- When the price of STEEM is below the haircut price, rewards are calculated based on the same sliding peg that governs the price of the SBD. With the SBD priced at $0.415, a post that reports a $10 payout is actually only paying out $4.15 worth of STEEM.
In short, everyone benefits if we can hold the haircut price below the price of STEEM.
What next?
So, clearly, it's possible to display /promoted posts and #burnsteem25 posts on other platforms. This shouldn't really come as a surprise, since people used to - in the days before HF23 - mirror their personal Steem blogs on github and other sites. Not surprising, but in my opinion, the ramifications have been underappreciated.
Fully Decentralized Competitor to Google AdSense
Combine the possibility for remote display of Steem posts with Steem's built in boosting mechanisms (beneficiary reward burning and/or post promotion), and here's one possible implementation of a Steem-powered fully decentralized competitor to Google AdSense:
Imagine that someone creates an advertising widget that displays these "boosted" posts and logs its activity in custom_json transactions on the blockchain. Imagine, also, that they create a proposal to pay SBDs from the SPS to an escrow service, and have them distributed to people who host this widget on platforms like WordPress, SubStack, and BlogSpot, according to the usage data that gets logged in the custom_json transactions.
Just like with AdSense, a post gets shuffled in and out of people's blog posts according to the promotion amount. High promotion amounts get more visibility.
Now, authors have a path to real visibility when they boost their posts, and all Steem ecosystem participants see the sustainable benefits of either a declining haircut price (post promotion) or reduced inflation (burnsteem25).
In addition to putting these posts in more places, Metcalfe's Law gets an additional boost here because the blockchain would begin harvesting from the existing SEO benefits that these platforms have already cultivated.
If we ever manage to get the haircut price and the STEEM price to flip and SBDs start printing again, this sort of mechanism seems to be one of the few self-sustaining tools that can hold the haircut price down for an indefinite time period.
Conclusion
So, the short recap is this. The developer creates a mechanism whereby Steem's promoted posts appear on other platforms in front of as many eyeballs as possible. This reduces the STEEM virtual_supply by burning tokens. It increases the Steem ecosystem demand by driving clicks to Steem front-ends. And, it increases the value according to Metcalfe's Law by increasing the number of participant nodes in the Steem ecosystem graph. Three benefits from a single enhancement.
In terms of effort vs. rewards, this seems to me like the most impactful direction that Steem development can take at the present time.
What do you think?
Sorry, but I think Steem is dead; nothing has happened for too long. Steem is a corpse that someone forgot to bury. My condolences.
0.00 SBD,
1.15 STEEM,
1.15 SP
I don't think it's dead, but a change in direction is definitely needed, or it will be.
That brings up another thing I like about this concept - It looks out, not in. It's not just another effort at somehow getting more value out of the same dwindling pool of stakeholders.
0.00 SBD,
4.97 STEEM,
4.97 SP
We will Definitely rise from the ruins
0.00 SBD,
3.13 STEEM,
3.13 SP
Hi @e-r-k-a-n, I think it was a wish of many who left Steem with the hope that it will fade away but it did not happen. There are still many active users who are here and who still posting, communicating but also I am glad that there are people who do programming and still developing a lot in there.
With help of Steem, we have collected a lot with charity goals, such as helped to Ukraine kids when we forwarded the fonds to Charity projects, we collected Steem together with crowdfunding for Turkey eathquake, there were many more help for people who were in need. I know that maybe that all give away will not bring the value of Steem up but it just shows that there are many people here who are ready to contribute and help.
I have myself using Steem helping my niece who is student with some financial support. If you think that Steem is dead that is your opinion and we are free to express our opinions, eveyone decides for themselves.
0.00 SBD,
0.47 STEEM,
0.47 SP
Maybe you're right that Steem isn't where many of us hoped it would be by now. But if it were truly dead, nobody would still be here discussing ideas, building tools, or trying to solve its problems. A corpse doesn't generate debates, proposals, or experiments. The ecosystem is definitely smaller and quieter than it once was, but I think there's a difference between being dead and being overlooked. Time will tell which one Steem really is.
0.00 SBD,
0.43 STEEM,
0.43 SP
I really like this idea because it focuses on something Steem has always struggled with its visibility outside its own ecosystem. The concept of turning promotion into a tool that benefits both content creators and the broader network is compelling, especially if it can create real demand for STEEM and SBD rather than relying solely on speculation. What stands out to me is that this feels achievable with today's tools and doesn't require a major protocol change. My main concern would be adoption by getting enough websites to run these widgets and enough users to see value in paying for promotion. Still, as a direction for Steem development, it feels practical, innovative, and worth exploring further.
0.00 SBD,
0.44 STEEM,
0.44 SP
Thanks for the feedback!
I agree. It's the type of thing that can start simple and build, but there are nearly endless opportunities to innovate. I already reactivated my blogspot blog this week as a mirror site for some of my Steem posts, and I moved the promoted post gadget right to front and center, so anyone who visits will see it.
Yeah, I agree with this, too. If post promotion is going to burn enough SBDs to hold the haircut price below the STEEM price after SBDs are printing again, it needs to scale - a lot, and that means incentive programs need to be created. That's a big challenge, especially in the short term.
As I said, though, in terms of effort vs. impact, I think this is near the top of the possibilities.
I think that's what I like most about the idea: you're not waiting for some major change to happen before testing it. You've already started experimenting, and that's usually how useful ideas evolve.
I completely agree that adoption is the hard part. Getting people to install the widgets and convincing users that the visibility is worth paying for won't happen overnight. But if nobody starts building and testing, we'll never know where the limits are.
At the very least, this feels like one of those ideas where the potential upside is much bigger than the effort required to try it. Even a small network of sites could provide valuable data and show whether the concept has room to grow.
0.00 SBD,
0.47 STEEM,
0.47 SP
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